Esquire Exclusive: Two Brand New Live Elton John Songs

Two never-before-available live Elton cuts, as his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road turns 40

"Elton John is the only person I know who can sell out any arena he wants anywhere in the world every night of the week," the legendary Leon Russell told me recently, understandably in awe of the fellow piano man who was once his protégé.

It's true. Elton John has been an international superstar for as long as most of us can remember. But, unlike the disposable pop stars who litter the streaming world we live in now, John's is the sort of fame that has been earned by years of hard work and a lifetime of musical output that is truly classic by anyone's measure.

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So it's no surprise that, while he still collaborates with lyricist Bernie Taupin and continues to release excellent albums, including The Union with Russell in 2010 and the remarkable instant classic The Diving Board last year, John's early-1970s albums have been reissued over the past few years as deluxe editions.

Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection from 1970 and Captain Fantastic from 1975 have each included demos, alternate versions, and live performances that have given scope and imbued nuance to albums that were already like old friends. Now, for its 40th birthday, comes an uber deluxe version of perhaps John's greatest work of pop music, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Released when John was at the (first) height of his popularity, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road showcased not just John's gifts as a performer and pianist, it heralded respectability for his songwriting partnership with Taupin — not to mention his crack band, Dee Murray (bass), Davey Johnstone (guitar) and Nigel Olsson (drums), who also provided the backing vocals that were part of John's trademark early-'70s sound.

"It was the height of our powers," John told me. "The songs were just pouring out. I would write at breakfast, at the table, the band would get up, and as I was writing, they'd finish their breakfast, join in, and by the time breakfast was over, we'd written and rehearsed two songs, and (then) we went in the studio and recorded them. That was the routine. You know, the musicians understood each other, the band knew what to play. I didn't tell them. [Then] the boys did their backing vocals while I was in bed."

While it may not quite be the double album watersheds that The Beatles' White Album, Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, or the Stones' Exile On Main Street were, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was a remarkable achievement for an artist who just a few years prior was struggling to even get heard. It cleared out that rock old guard in many respects, making way for a new, more pop-oriented brand of superstar, offering music equally at home on the underground FM stations of the day as well as Top 40 radio.

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"By the time we got to making Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the machine was so well oiled within the four musicians and the producer Gus Dudgeon," John said. "It was perfection. Gus Dudgeon I have to say was the fifth member of the band. The actual sound of the quality of the recording is extraordinary and that was down to him. He was our fifth member; like the Beatles had George Martin, we had Gus."

The album included a string of hit singles, placing John and Taupin in league with their heroes, Lennon and McCartney. But John admits that wasn't all down to the duo, who were clearly on fire as a songwriting team.

"I remember the record company phoning up and saying 'Bennie And The Jets' should be the single in America and I said 'No, I want "Candle In The Wind,"'" John admits now. "I turned them down so many times until they (eventually) told me the record had gone to #1 on the R&B station in Detroit. And for me, a white boy from Pinner who'd grown up loving black music and played the blues and R&B all my life, I let them have their way. It shows you that as an artist sometimes you know nothing."

The new edition of course contains "Bennie and the Jets", alongside the classics "Candle In The Wind", "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting", and the title track, as well as the epic opener "Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and elegiac "Harmony". It also includes demos, remixes — the acoustic "Candle In The Wind" is a real treat — and a period documentary on DVD, all of which flesh out the creative process, as well as remakes by some current artists that are unique and fun. "Grey Seal" by The Band Perry, "All The Girls Love Alice" from Emili Sande, and Fall Out Boy's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" are all fun and unique and carry each artists own stamp without trampling too hard on the magic of John's original. And John Grant's "Sweet Painted Lady" is a standout.

But the real treat is a 1973 concert from London's Hammersmith Odeon, which has circulated in audio and DVD formats from BBC files amongst collectors for years. But here, in all its remastered glory, John and his band are shown in all their mid-'70s majesty, loose and joking with (or even sniping at) the crowd at times, but mostly rocking the roof off the place.

And so here we present the exclusive premiere of Elton John's performances of "Bennie and the Jets" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" from the live bonus discs that accompany the deluxe 40th anniversary reissue of his multi-platinum, worldwide #1, Grammy winning album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It'll be out on March 25th, worldwide.

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